


Greater Need Than Mine

by GalahadWilder



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Reveal, Lovesquare Obsessed Secret Santa, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:40:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28460298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalahadWilder/pseuds/GalahadWilder
Summary: When Kagami Tsurugi walks in on her boyfriend transforming into Chat Noir, she immediately seeks out Marinette Dupain-Cheng for advice. Then Marinette lets something slip that she really shouldn't have.Ladybug and Chat Noir—Adrien and Marinette—belong together. Is there really room for Kagami?
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Kagami Tsurugi, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Kagami Tsurugi, Adrigami - Relationship, Adrigaminette - Relationship, Adrimi - Relationship, Kagaminette - Relationship, Marigami - Relationship, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Kagami Tsurugi
Comments: 19
Kudos: 276





	Greater Need Than Mine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Callmedale](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callmedale/gifts).



“Please don’t scream,” Adrien says, his hands up, his voice desperate. He’s standing in the middle of his room, hunched, like a cornered animal. Like he’s going to bolt out the window at any moment.

“I do not scream,” Kagami says, which is true. She doesn’t. That does not mean that her composure is not quietly shattering inside her, her ribs breaking apart. This is the last thing she expected to see when she walked into her boyfriend’s room—and yet it makes so much sense. Why he’s always so distant. Why he keeps disappearing on her whenever there’s an Akuma attack. It even clears up the “other girl/Marinette” issue—of course it’s not Marinette, at least  _ now _ .

Adrien is still looking at her like she’s about to explode—and, to be fair, she just might. But she would never be so gauche as to explode  _ onto him— _ no, this will be an internal explosion, one that will leave no mess on anyone and she can contemplate later.

“Are you okay?” Adrien says.

“I am fine,” Kagami lies.

“Oh no. I know that look.” Adrien steps forward, reaching for her hand. “You need a minute?”

Kagami looks at the tiny black cat floating next to his shoulder. “What does yours eat?” she says.

Adrien swallows. “Cheese,” he says. “Really  _ smelly  _ cheese.”

* * *

It goes like this:

After 27 Mister Pigeons and 12 Mister Rats, Paris has stopped taking attacks from Xavier Ramier seriously. Oh, Ladybug and Chat Noir still show up for every battle, simply because that is what they do. But with each attack, Ramier has been less and less violent, less and less dangerous, to the point where he’s basically an inconvenience. Kagami didn’t even bother rescheduling her date.

When she’d arrived at the Agreste Manor, Nathalie had let her right in. She’d gone up to Adrien’s room, knocked on the door, and when she heard no answer, assumed he must’ve been in the shower or something. (He did that a lot.)

Instead, when she opened the door, she found Chat Noir, his ring down to one pad and blinking. One second later, he was flashing green. One second after that…

* * *

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Adrien says.

“I would be disappointed in you if you had,” Kagami says. She’s sitting on his couch, clutching her jacket closed with shaking hands. Her chest feels cold, like her windpipe is freezing all the way up her neck. “Do you remember what Ladybug told me when I revealed mine?”

Adrien hangs his head. “Yeah,” he says. He gathers up a blanket, carefully draping it around her shoulders. “I didn’t mean for you to find out.”

“You weren’t careful,” Kagami snaps, and then her stomach immediately drops out because that is  _ not _ the right thing to say, and not at all the impression she meant to give. She can see the hurt in Adrien’s eyes from her words.

“You’re right,” he says, despondent. “I—I wasn’t.”

She swallows through chattering teeth. She’s hurt him, again, and she wants to make this right but she doesn’t know how. “You are… my hero,” she forces out.

He looks up at her, blinks. “It’s—” He glances down at his hand. “It’s just the ring.”

Kagami shakes her head. “Is it the choker that makes  _ me _ special?” she says. “I was chosen to be Ryuko for a reason.  _ You _ were chosen for something far greater.”

“I keep trying to tell him,” the tiny cat rasps. “Kid never believes me.”

Adrien smiles, but then his whole body droops. “I’ll… understand if you want to break up with me.”

“Break up with—!” Kagami takes a deep breath, clutching the blanket around herself. “I—no, of course not!” She suppresses a shiver as she reaches out to touch Adrien’s cheek, unable to ignore the clamminess of skin on skin. “Adrien, I am proud of you.”

He shivers, closing his eyes, and a single tear squeezes from between his lids.

* * *

Kagami needs to talk to someone about this. Usually she keeps everything bottled up—she’s never really had anyone to talk to, even in Osaka (she always had trouble relating to people her own age, and her mother has never really been the “motherly” type). But ever since she came to France, that has changed. France is where she met Adrien, yes, but it is also where she met Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

She’d texted Marinette as soon as her time with Adrien was over, barely able to hold herself together, and as soon as Marinette had given her a location she’d bolted for the Trocadero.

It’s not a long run—definitely not a sprint, but not so long that she has to walk. Still, her whole body is on fire from exertion when she gets to the Trocadero and sees the familiar pink pants and black pigtails of the girl sitting on the steps.

Marinette looks up from her sketching, sees Kagami, and immediately leaps to her feet with a delighted beam. “Kagami!” she says, running up and throwing herself into a hug. “Everything okay?”

“I… don’t know,” Kagami says, suppressing a shiver at the touch. She  _ likes _ Marinette, she  _ likes _ Marinette’s enthusiasm and willingness to touch, even if has trouble with touch herself. “It’s… it should be a good thing, but…”

Marinette pulls back and raises an eyebrow. “This sounds like something that would be easier to talk about over juice,” she says.

Kagami is eternally thankful for Marinette. Even though they are both in love with the same boy, Marinette has only briefly held that against her, and what could have been the beginning of a horrific rivalry had instead grown into the best friendship Kagami has ever had. But Kagami can still see how Marinette hurts whenever they talk about Adrien, whenever Kagami talks to her about her boyfriend problems, and she feels guilty, like brackish water all the way down into her soul. But Marinette has been nothing but understanding, and right now Kagami needs the help.

Once they have their juice, Marinette sits Kagami down at an outside table under one of those thick canvas parasols. “Okay, talk to me,” she says. “What’s up?”

Kagami holds her cup in both hands, staring at it, unable to meet Marinette’s eyes. “I… discovered a secret of Adrien’s,” she begins, haltingly. “I did not intend to, but.”

“And now you’re mad at him,” Marinette says, sipping at her juice.

“I—No!” Kagami says. “He was protecting me, and I—it’s a secret I should not even know!”

Marinette halts mid-sip. “Protecting you?”

Kagami opens her mouth to speak, then halts. “I—I cannot say anymore without breaching his trust.”

Marinette nods as if she understands, which is a bit of a surprise for Kagami. She sort of expected her to push a little further. “Okay, so, first step is to categorize your emotions,” Marinette says, listing them on her fingers. “You’re scared that you know, mad at him for keeping it from you,  _ also _ mad at him for letting you find out. What else?”

Kagami wants to object. She’s not angry at Adrien! Not at all! But—Marinette’s words are striking home in a way that she did not expect. Maybe… maybe she  _ is _ .

She needs a moment to think, to process. She puts her lips to her straw, takes a sip, lets the sweet and cold orange juice splash into her mouth. Adrien is Chat Noir. Is she angry at him? For continually leaving her while on dates? For not telling her? For throwing himself into danger over and over again, so recklessly, for dying and dying and  _ dying _ ?

Yes. Yes she is.

“Perhaps… perhaps I am,” she begins, placing her drink back on the table. “But, I am also…  _ proud  _ of him. For the things he does.”

Marinette’s eyes narrow. “Did he tell you about Aspik?”

Kagami blinks. “What is Aspik?” she says.

Marinette stares at her, incredulous, eyes wide. “I. Um. Nothing?” she offers, weakly. “Don’t—don’t worry about it?”

“Is Adrien keeping other things from me?” Kagami says.

Marinette’s face goes white. “Is… is everything okay?”

Kagami looks down at her feet. “I…” Ice rises in her throat. “I do not know.”

* * *

“Adrien, what is ‘Aspik?’” Kagami says.

Astounding. She can actually  _ hear _ Adrien freeze over the phone—the way his breath stops. She briefly muses over the idea that she might’ve just killed him.

“ _ Who told you about Aspik? _ ” he says.

“Adrien—” she begins.

He cuts her off. “ _ I’ll tell you in a minute, just—Kagami, this is really important. Only two people know about that. Who told you?” _

“...Marinette?”

“ _ Oh God.” _ Adrien is breathing heavy, the speaker crackling in her ear with every exhalation. “ _ Oh my—oh my God. It’s—no. No way. I can’t believe—. _ ”

Kagami grimaces as she fights down a wave of irritation. “Adrien. Explain, please.”

He breathes in. “ _ Okay, _ ” he says. “ _ Um. Do you remember a few months back when we cut fencing to go hang out at Luka’s, and Jagged Stone came over?” _

Kagami thinks back. That was a while ago. “He’d… fired his guitar player, correct?”

“ _ Yeah _ ,” Adrien says. “ _ Anyway she got Akumatized, and, um. Ladybug didn’t know I was Chat Noir. Still doesn’t.” _

Kagami is not sure she likes where this is going.

“ _ She asked me to wield the Snake Miraculous.” _

“And you  _ accepted? _ ” Kagami gasps.

“ _ What was I supposed to say,  _ **_no_ ** _?” _ Adrien hisses back. “ _ She needed me _ .”

“She needed you as Chat!” Kagami snaps back.

“ _ Easy to say in hindsight! _ ” Adrien replies. He breathes in, slowly, then back out. “ _ Anyway, it was… bad. _ ”

Kagami’s eye twitches. “How bad?”

“ _ I was stuck in a time loop for three months. We kept losing, and I kept… resetting, and…” _ He trails off with a sob.

“No wonder you were so tired when you got back to the boat,” Kagami murmurs. She remembers that day now. How  _ broken _ Adrien had seemed at the end of it, for reasons she’d never been able to place. It makes more sense now, a horrifying kind of sense.

“I am… sorry,” she says. The words aren’t enough to convey the vast feeling inside her, the sympathy she has for him, the horror she feels at what he was forced to endure. “If I had known…”

“ _ Gami, it’s—it’s okay _ ,” Adrien says. “ _ You weren’t supposed to. I mean—I’m the one who didn’t tell you. _ ”

Kagami wishes she could stop being mad at him about that. She understands why he did it, she’d be disappointed if he told her, so why is she so hurt that he’s been keeping things from her? Those things needed to be kept from her.

“ _ Kagami, only two people ever knew that I wore the snake _ ,” Adrien says. “ _ And one of them was Luka.” _

“Who is the other?”

Adrien is silent for a moment. “ _ Ladybug. Ladybug is.” _

Kagami’s skin begins to crawl as she realizes what Adrien is saying. Everything—everything matches. The hair. The height. The eyes. The  _ fire _ . Oh, Kami, Ladybug is Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

All the breath is driven from her lungs, and she is left gasping,  _ grasping _ , for air. She remembers the way she felt the first time Ladybug touched her, the first time Marinette spoke to her, the way her heart caught fire. Ladybug— _ Marinette _ —is the most incredible person she’s ever met, and. And…

And Adrien feels the same way.

Kagami’s body goes cold as she realizes what she has to do. “Chat Noir has always been in love with Ladybug,” she says, her voice kept level to keep the tears out of it. “ _ You _ are in love with Ladybug.”

“ _ Kagami, I— _ ” Adrien begins to protest.

She doesn’t let him finish. “Adrien, Marinette is in love with you.” If she doesn’t do this  _ now _ , she’s never going to. Don’t hesitate. “She always has been.”

Adrien is silent for a moment. “ _ Gami?” _ he says, finally, his voice weak.

“You should be with her,” Kagami says, trying not to cry. This is the most difficult thing she’s ever done, but it is the unquestionably the right thing to do. She should never have stood between them.

“ _ Gami, don’t— _ ”

She hangs up. She can’t bear to hear another word.

She opens up her texting app, rejecting a call from Adrien in the process, and shoots a message to Marinette.  _ He’s all yours. Be good to him. _

She doesn’t see a response before she shuts the phone off.

* * *

It’s only once she is alone, in her bedroom, that she breaks down. She buries her face into her pillow and, for the first time in a long time, begins to cry.

There’s no dignity to this, no elegance—it’s messy, wet and snotty and blubbery. She’s completely falling apart, her whole body wracked with sobs, and all she wants to do is curl up under her covers and fall asleep and not wake up for a week.

She can’t. She has to get up. She has to  _ move _ .

She stands up, swipes the tears from her face with her blanket, and throws open her closet. Her sabers are in there, in her bag. She unzips it, draws one, and falls into stance.

This is better. This is much better. She slashes, advances, retreats, parries against a shadow opponent, practicing every move, every step. She doesn’t have to stop. She doesn’t have to think. She doesn’t have to be aware of what she’s lost if all she’s aware of is her body, the blade in her hand.

Parry. Riposte. Strike. Don’t think about Adrien’s laugh.

Advance. Retreat. Strike. Don’t think about the sunlight through Marinette’s hair.

Feint. Advance. Strike. Don’t think about both of their hands in yours. How warm you feel when they—

The knock at her window comes all too soon. And of  _ course _ it’s at her window, Adrien is a superhero, why would he go in the front when he could take a shortcut? She sighs, resting the blade against her shoulder, and shuffles over to the window. “Adrien, you shouldn’t  _ be _ here _ — _ ” she begins, throwing open the window—only for her words to catch in her throat like a too-big apple in her esophagus as she sees, not Chat Noir, but  _ Ladybug _ .

The mask hides it well—covers all the puffiness—but it’s evident from the bloodshot in Ladybug’s eyes that she’s been crying, or at least trying  _ not _ to. “May I come in?” she says.

Kagami, unsure of what to say, steps back and gestures.

Ladybug clambers through the window. “So, um,” she says. “Marinette told me to check on you, said you might be—”

“Marinette-sama,” Kagami interrupts. “I know it’s you.”

Ladybug freezes. “I—what?” she says.

“I know that Marinette is Ladybug,” Kagami says. “You don’t have to keep pretending.”

“No, but see, I, ah!” Ladybug’s hands pinwheel around her face, grasping at cheeks, chin, forehead, the way Marinette always does when she’s surprised. “I don’t—I don’t know what—what you’re balking atout?”

Kagami simply raises an eyebrow.

“Marinette is a comtepely differep terson!” Ladybug ejects. Her consonants are getting scrambled. What Adrien has always referred to as “word salad,” for reasons Kagami doesn’t quite understand, and never once has Ladybug done it that Kagami is aware of. If she weren’t sure before, she certainly is now.

Ladybug stares at her, her eyes wide and quivering. “Listen, Marinette asked—Marinette asked—Marinette—”

Kagami steps forward and takes her hand. “Marinette. Please. Don’t.”

Ladybug chokes. “How did you—”

“Aspik,” Kagami says.

Ladybug’s eyes narrow. “Adrien—he  _ told _ you?” Her voice drips with frost, and Kagami takes an involuntary step back. At this moment, Kagami is certain that if Ladybug wanted to burn down the Tsurugi Mansion with just her eyes,  _ she absolutely could _ .

“ _ Watashi _ —” Kagami swallows, barely noticing that she’s lapsed into Japanese. “ _ Ma, eto— _ I,  _ eto _ , Ladybug—” She’s stammering. She does not stammer.

The window knocks again.

Both of their heads  _ snap _ around to see a sheepish Chat Noir, waving at both of them. “Uh, hi Ladybug!” he says. “What are you doing here?”

Ladybug growls. “Chaton, this is  _ not a good time. _ ”

Chat clambers through the window. “I’m sorry, My Lady, but this is kind of important.”

Kagami’s stomach drops. One of them she could handle, but two? Right now? She wishes she could just… ask them to leave, but. Well. She knows Adrien, and she knows Chat. He’s too stubborn to go. And… honestly, she’s not certain she  _ could _ tell Ladybug to leave.

“Chaton,  _ please _ ,” Ladybug says. “You have to go—”

“I’m  _ not leaving, _ ” Chat says, his shoulders set, looking Ladybug square in the eye.

Kagami crosses her arms. “Then you should both be prepared for my mother to walk in on you, because she certainly heard you arguing.”

Ladybug and Chat both look at her, horrified.

Kagami grimaces. “She has trained her hearing well.” She uncrosses her arms, pointing upward. “If you must argue, take it to the roof.”

* * *

When Kagami’s mother opens the door to her daughter’s room, Kagami is the only person in it. She’d managed to shoo both Chat and Ladybug out the window with just enough time to leap onto her computer before the door began to creak open.

“ _ Musume _ ,” Tomoe says, her voice as flat and flinty as it’s ever been. “Are you studying? I heard voices.”

“ _ Hai, Okaasan _ ,” Kagami replies. “My school is holding a mandatory seminar on conflict resolution. We were assigned a number of preparatory videos.” Kagami is a terrible improvisational liar, and her mother knows it; however, what Tomoe does  _ not _ know is that if Kagami can prepare the lie ahead of time, it’s almost impossible to detect. That’s why she’s been holding onto this particular untruth for several months—the school really did have such a seminar, but it was some time ago. Kagami simply neglected to tell her mother about it in preparation for just such an occasion. (It’s much easier to sell thanks to the fact that her mother cannot see that the screen is, in fact, displaying a fencing website, instead of the homework that Kagami claimed.)

“Hrrm,” her mother grunts, blank-faced. Despite her relative difficulty Kagami has reading people’s facial expressions, Kagami knows that look—her mother is judging the quality of French education, and has decided once again that it is “too soft.” “Mind your studies,” she says, closing the door behind her.

Kagami holds in her sigh of relief until she’s certain she hears her mother’s footsteps retreating, until she is certain her mother is out of earshot. She can’t imagine her mother’s reaction to discovering that she has been sneaking people into her room, even people as illustrious as Ladybug and Chat Noir, but it can’t be a good one.

Speaking of the Parisian superheroes, the two of them are still waiting for her on the roof.

She slides the window back open, then carefully clambers out onto the ledge. She’s considering how to climb up to the roof—it’s much harder, without a Miraculous—when a yo-yo descends right in front of her face.

“Grab on,” Ladybug says.

Kagami is hoisted onto the roof to see the expectant, despondent faces of her heroes—of her  _ loves _ —and her heart squeezes. She can’t do this. She can’t face both of them. Maybe she should just run away, back to Osaka, where the people she loves cannot hurt her anymore.

“Is she gone?” Chat says.

Kagami nods with tight lips. She doesn’t trust her words.

“Okay, good,” Ladybug says. She looks at Chat, then back at Kagami. “Now, will someone  _ please _ explain what’s going on?”

Chat bites his lip, then sighs. “Gami, um. Walked in on me while I was transforming.”

Ladybug’s yo-yo drops from her fingers, clattering unattended onto the roof.

Chat reaches up and scratches the back of his neck, the way Adrien always does when he’s sheepish or embarrassed. (It’s strange, now, to see so much of Adrien in Chat Noir.) “I think—well, she freaked out a little bit. And she, um. Went to talk to you?”

Ladybug’s eyes go wide, and she surges forward, grabbing Chat’s shoulders with a terrified glare. “ _ You know who I am? _ ” she hisses.

Chat swallows, not taking his eyes off Ladybug’s. “You and Luka were the only ones who knew about Aspik.”

Ladybug blinks. “Not even you did,” she says. “Unless…” Kagami can  _ see _ the gears turning in Ladybug’s mind as she looks away from Chat’s face. “Wait. Kagami saw you detransform and immediately came to me. Next thing I know, she’s messaging me that she broke up with—” She looks back at Chat, eyes wide with horror. “ _ Adrien? _ ”

Chat’s grin is small and watery. “Hi, Mari,” he says.

“You see why,” Kagami says, finally finding her voice. “Why I—why I—” She can’t finish the sentence. She can’t bring herself to say it.

“That wasn’t fair of you,” Ladybug growls. “Not to either of us.”

Bile rises in Kagami’s throat. “He—Marinette, he loves you. Don’t you see?” She’s begging now,  _ pleading _ —Marinette  _ has to understand _ . “You two—you love him, you were always meant for each other, I was just—just—an  _ accessory! _ ”

“How  _ dare _ you!” Ladybug cries, leaping toward Kagami and tackling her into a crushing hug. Her voice is broken, wet. “How—how  _ dare _ you think so—so  _ little _ of yourself!”

“Don’t you  _ see _ ?” Kagami sobs back. “I—I love you! Both of you!” She buries her face in Ladybug’s shoulder, feeling the spandex grow wet with her own tears. “Too much to come between you.”

“And you think I  _ don’t? _ ” Chat snaps, finally coming out of his shocked stupor. “Kagami, I—I—” His head falls, his voice growing quiet as his ears begin to droop. “Please. Don’t—don’t make me choose.”

Ladybug and Kagami both stare at him for a long moment in a growing uncomfortable silence.

“What if…” Ladybug begins, finally. “What if you didn’t have to?”

Chat’s ears shoot straight upward as Kagami’s stomach flips inside her chest.

Ladybug steps back, placing her hands on Kagami’s shoulders. “Watching you two date has been… the hardest experience of my life.” Her eyes are searching Kagami’s face—for what, Kagami isn’t sure. “Not just because of my feelings for  _ him _ , but because of… because…” She closes her eyes. “I was falling for you, too.”

A spark of impossible hope lights in Kagami’s chest. She—no. No, this isn’t possible.

“Kagami Tsurugi,” Ladybug says, her bluer than blue eyes boring into Kagami’s. “I love you.” She turns to Chat Noir. “Adrien. Chat.  _ Mon Minou. _ ”

Chat’s whole body straightens at that, standing a little taller, a little prouder.

Ladybug smiles. “I love you.”

“Ladybug—” Kagami begins, her voice hushed.

“You both love me, and you love each other,” Ladybug says. “What if—what if…”

Chat steps forward, taking Ladybug’s hand in his left and Kagami’s in his right. “Together,” he says.

Kagami’s heartbeat speeds up, burning through her chest as she takes Ladybug’s free hand in her own. “Together,” she agrees. She can’t believe this—none of this should be possible. She isn’t—she  _ can’t _ be this lucky.

“Together,” Ladybug—Marinette—her  _ girlfriend _ —finishes, giving her hand a squeeze. “The three of us against the world.”

Chat looks at Kagami. “The three of us against the world.”

Kagami smiles, trying to ignore the wetness on her face. “I would like that,” she says. “I would like that very much.”


End file.
